Marwan Barghouti, "Why We Are on Hunger Strike in Israel’s Prisons": The New York Times Again Omits the Truth

"Hezbollah and Syria are well and truly deterred, and if Israel were to simply let them be, they would have to be crazy to strike first."

As I noted in a previous blog entry, at the bottom of the op-ed, the Times described Larry Derfner as "a journalist" and "the author of the forthcoming memoir 'No Country for Jewish Liberals.'" There was no mention by the Times that Derfner was fired by The Jerusalem Post after writing in his blog in August 2011, following a terrorist attack outside of Eilat, "...I think the Palestinians have the right to use terrorism against us..." Well, it should come as no surprise that The New York Times is back to its old tricks today. In a guest Times op-ed entitled "Why We Are on Hunger Strike in Israel’s Prisons," Marwan Barghouti writes:

"Having spent the last 15 years in an Israeli prison, I have been both a witness to and a victim of Israel’s illegal system of mass arbitrary arrests and ill-treatment of Palestinian prisoners. After exhausting all other options, I decided there was no choice but to resist these abuses by going on a hunger strike.

. . . .

Israel has established a dual legal regime, a form of judicial apartheid, that provides virtual impunity for Israelis who commit crimes against Palestinians, while criminalizing Palestinian presence and resistance. "

"On May 20, 2004, the Tel Aviv District Court convicted Barghouti of three terror attacks in which five Israelis were murdered, and also of attempted murder, membership in a terror organization and conspiring to commit a crime. He was acquitted of 33 other murders with which he was charged, because of a lack of evidence. On June 6, 2004, Barghouti was sentenced to five consecutive life terms and 40 years.

The court said in its verdict that 'Barghouti was responsible for providing the field units with money and arms….' The judges said that the attacks were sometimes 'based on instructions' from Yasser Arafat.

The court found Barghouti responsible for a June 2001 attack in Maale Adumim, in which a Greek monk was murdered, a January 2002 terror attack on a gas station in Givat Zeev, a March 2002 attack at Tel Aviv's Seafood Market restaurant, in which three people were murdered, and a car bomb attack in Jerusalem."

On the masthead of The New York Times, we are told "Truth. It has no alternative." Perhaps this is true, except as it relates to the unrelenting campaign of the Times to smear Israel. I can only wonder if the Times would provide op-ed space to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who, together with his brother, perpetrated the infamous Boston Marathon Bombing...